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Top 20 WiiWare Games in USA (12th Nov)

It's Wednesday again which can only mean one thing. It's time to take a look at the most popular WiiWare titles available in the Wii Shop. If you're feeling adventurous you can even take a look for yourself by simply logging on to your Wii Shop channel, heading into the WiiWare section and then viewing "Popular Games". It's that simple! Trust us, if we can do it, anyone can.

We compile this list using the USA region Wii Shop channel, so if you live elsewhere your list will probably be quite a bit different. Please feel free to post your region's findings below as always.

Keep in mind that the list below is a measure of actual sales made recently, not of the total time the game has been available for sale.

There has been no change in the top 5 this week. Tetris Party and World of Goo continue to sell like hot cakes. Even Dr Mario is seeing a boost this week, maybe a new audience has moved on to it after enjoying Tetris?

Alien Crush Returns finally makes an appearance, we were a bit worried when it didn’t show up last week! Hopefully it will break into the top 10 soon, it deserves to as it is a quality game.

This week we say farewell to Orbient, Cubello and Midnight Pool. May you all be remembered fondly.

From the web

Darren is Nintendo Life’s Batman: fearless in the face of danger, he loves gadgets and talking in a really, really deep voice. As Operations Director he stays mostly behind the scenes in a room he insists on calling “The Batcave”.

Notable action of the week:*Tetris Party's reign at the top lasted for only one week and Mega Man 9 has instead reclaimed that position. I had no idea Mega Man was this popular in Sweden.*Helix is this weeks biggest climber and went 3 spots from 8th to 5th. It's now 7 weeks since the very same game left the US charts. How things can differ ehh?*Brain Challenge is this weeks' highest newcomer is 8th. Not too surprising since it's the kind of casual that the average Wii Fit buyer would appreciate. Gameloft keeps getting win after win, it's very impressive of them.*In 12th we find the faller of the week and this drop redefines what a big drop on the Wiiware charts is. The turd known as "The Incredible Maze" kinda lived up to it's name and dropped an incredible 8 spots(?!) and that's despite that only one of the newcomers passed it. I'm guessing people realized how atrocious it was. At this rate it will leave the chart by next week.*Something that not many people may know is that Sweden's first claim to fame in gaming was with pinball games. It was actually DICE, the developer the behind the Battlefield series that first broke into the gaming scene win the well known Pinball Dreams series. So we have a pinball legacy here in Sweden. But apparently that was no help for Alien Crush Returns which entered the charts in 13th place. Respectable but that about it. However, it did beat...*Space Invaders Get Even which entered the charts in 14th. I'm guessing that it's not remembered all too fondly in these parts and it being broken up in all those parts probably didn't help either.*FFCC:MLAAK was dangerously close to leaving the charts altogether this week. For a large part of the week it hovered in 19th but eventually managed to climb back 2 positions and ended up in 17th. Still, it's a sure indication that time is running out for Final Fantasy and it dropped 5 spots in total.*Instead the 19th spot was claimed by My Pokémon Ranch after falling 6 spots. While, it has had drops like this before, it has never been as far down as it is now and when the next batch of games arrive it might not be here anymore.*And finally in 20th Toki Tori is still holding on. Way to go!*This week's drop outs were "The Sims 1 without the actual playing part of the Sims", "Overboard Equal But Less" and "Crappy racing game making strides in the charts just cause it's uncontested". Especially the complete failure of Home Sweet Home is notable since it entered the charts just 2 weeks ago.

Next week there's nothing really interesting to look forward to. No new games mean no new fun. Sure, we'll see if Mega Man 9 can hang on to its reclaimed top spot, how far up the charts the newcomers will go after their first full weeks and if Toki Tori can manage to stay alive for another week. But what I really would want is weekly updates instead of biweekly like it is now... You listening NOE?

what is Guitar Hero World Tour Pay and Play???? On a different note, i dont know why peeps like the maze, and my pokemon ranch. oh well. May be scince the art styles arent doing good ma bo shi will come around the corner.

@Crazynoodle--GHWT Pay and Play is a download service for Guitar Hero World Tour that lets you download new songs to play. It is 200 Wii Points a song, which is pretty good considering you get vocals, guitar, bass and drums in easy, medium, hard, and expert modes. If you like Guitar Hero/Rock Band, then you should get Guitar Hero World Tour!

I was so happy about the Uncredible Maze slipping in position and then I see the UK charts...drat. We sure do have an undying love for 500 Wii point games (space invaders is 500 points too...only the 3 sequels won't appear on the chart )

Shovelware is nice, without it, I'll be in bankrupt every week, and now and then you find some ugly game only you like for odd reasons, btw Go "The Incredible Maze"! . The charts are interesting today, the fall of the ArtStyle games is a shame, is Pong Toss the one that has to go, but it seems we'll have to wait a little longer for that.

@Djungelurban- You're thinking of bimonthly. Biweekly means twice a week, not once every two weeks. Wait... I just checked. Biweekly can be used to mean either twice a week or once every two weeks. How worthless! Anyway, I guess it works in good context, and it is in good context in your case. I definitely agree with you. We Americans get good service (not always good games, but good service ), so NoE needs to pick it up.

@Versus22- I'd like to thank you for posting the Canadian list so diligently. It's always nice to see different perspectives.

Heh, I can't wait for a video game developer to come out and say they created their crappy game so we can appreciate better games more. Alas, JV Games and BPlus are too modest to admit how devoted they are to the common good of video games.

@Djungelurban: Sorry, since the charts were posted later than normal this week, I entirely forgot. Next week I should have the UK chart up. Or - you could go the whole hog and do all Europe for us all. I'll give you imaginary Rep points

@Wiiloveit: Even better up, I can give you Swaziland!! But no, not gonna do that. Just did UK this once since it's a recurring chart but I would prefer if I didn't have to cause it's a bit of a hassle to switch regions. If you are unable and everyone else unwilling, sure then once in a while I might back you up. But like I said, I rather not. UK is your puppy.

@Serpent: As I say just about every week here, it's most likely because it's cheap and appeals to just about every casual gamer. I'd go into further depth, but I'm getting tired of talking about this. Maybe you could start questioning why My Pokemon Ranch has been doing so good all of this time, and why Dr Mario is still in the top 10 (in the US at least)?

the staying power of defend your castle is a testament to its $5 price. While wiiware games are influenced by quality, word of mouth and reviews, they are very price sensitive even if most games are cheap. I would bet games would have a huge surge in sales if they ever went on sale. Toki Tori sales have probably cratered, they would definitely benefit.If the service had a weekend sale, similar to steam, that would also be a great way to get relatively older titles back in the mix. Eventually there will be enough great games that there won't be room in the top 20 for all the Goo or Lost Wind titles.